Week 8: Liberals

Some of us love them, while some of us hate them, according to the stats, most of us don’t really care. We’re talking about political parties. In Australia, there tends to be much less party loyalty than in other parts of the world. 

Well, over the next four weeks I’m going to be devoting a weekly post to each of Australia’s four biggest political parties. We’ll talk about where they came from, what they stand for, and why they’re different. We’ll begin today with one half of the party in government, the Liberal Party of Australia.

Refresher:

As we have discussed before, Australia is a parliamentary democracy. This means the head of our government is a member of parliament, and their authority is vested in their political party’s majority support in the Parliament. This differs from the United States, where the President is directly elected by the people, possessing greater individual authority than an our PM. Everything the PM does ultimately relies on the support of their party, with the last decade in Australian politics offering numerous examples of why that’s true.

Liberal Party of Australia:

Formed in 1944, the Liberal Party is Australia’s most electorally successful party, winning 64% of elections since WWII. During that same period, the Liberals have been the dominant partner in the Coalition, a two-party alliance formed with The Nationals, which began following Sir Robert Menzies’ founding of the Liberal Party.

Overview:

The Liberals are a centre-right political party, their core philosophy underpinned by “the inalienable rights and freedoms of all peoples…and working towards a lean government that minimises interference in our daily lives; and maximises individual and private sector initiative”.

As a result of the pursuit of a lean (small) government, a key Liberal ideological pillar is tax reduction. The Liberal Party is often described as a “broad church” encompassing the views of two major factions, the conservatives (known as the “Dries” and moderates (the “Wets”). They are more typically divided on highly politicised, identity-based issues such as same-sex marriage and in recent times, climate change.

Robert Menzies was Australia’s longest serving PM (18 years across two stints). He is regarded as the Founder of the modern Liberal Party, which brought together numerous anti-Labor parties in 1944 to become the Liberal Party of Australia. He’s generally every Liberal leader’s biggest man-crush, too. 

John Howard is Australia’s second longest serving PM. A former Treasurer, Howard instituted major gun law reforms, introduced the GST, and sent Australia to war in Iraq and Afghanistan. He won four elections over an 11-year period.

Core constituents:

Traditionally, Australia’s middle and upper class have been the bedrock of the Liberal Party’s support base. Currently, of the 20 wealthiest electorates, 17 are held by Liberals. Statistics show that as wealth increases, so too does probability of voting Liberal. In recent years the Liberals have been encroaching on Labor’s turf. Data shows that electorates with higher proportions of workers in “extractive” industries (e.g mining and agriculture) and construction/manufacturing are consistently linked with higher support for the Coalition,

In the past, these workers (mainly men) may have been signed-up union members. However, as union membership has fallen and demographics have changed, so too have voting patterns.

Key Policies:

1966: Begin the dismantling of the White Australia Policy

• The Holt Government reformed immigration practices to no longer preference Europeans over Non-Europeans by equalising visa processing application times. This was the first in a number of steps taken by governments of both persuasions to eradicate race as a factor in immigration processing. 

1996: Gun Control

• Following the Port Arthur Massacre in 1996, John Howard oversaw tightening of gun ownership laws in the face of strong pressure from sections of the community, primarily from The Nationals within the Coalition. 

Hopefully now you’re a little bit more familiar with the Liberal Party. Next week, we’ll give Labor the same treatment. Then The Nationals, and lastly, the Greens. Everyone gets a go! See you then.